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Ali Khan
Ali Khan

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DeployEase — A Fully Automated AWS EC2 Deployment Platform for Modern Developers

Deploying applications to AWS EC2 often becomes a repetitive, manual, and error-prone process involving SSH setups, Nginx configurations, environment handling, instance provisioning, and constant debugging.
DeployEase is a platform I built to eliminate all of that complexity.

DeployEase provides a clean, guided, and automated workflow for deploying Node.js, Python, React, and static applications directly to AWS EC2 with real-time logs, SSH access, autoscaling support, volume resizing, and complete instance lifecycle management.

Whether you're a solo developer, a student learning cloud, or a freelancer building for clients, DeployEase streamlines deployment into an efficient, predictable, one-click experience.


🔐 Seamless GitHub Authentication

DeployEase uses OAuth GitHub login to let you sign in instantly.
Once authenticated:

  • Your GitHub repositories are fetched automatically
  • You can deploy any repo directly to AWS
  • No setup overhead just log in and start deploying

📊 Clean and Insightful Dashboard

After login, you are welcomed by a simple, structured dashboard:

When you have no deployments:

A clean empty state page appears, guiding you to deploy your first application.

When deployments exist:

Each deployment card provides three essential actions:


1 View Details

  • Shows real-time instance state
  • Streams terminal logs from running Node/Python apps
  • Displays configuration and process info
  • Helps debug failed deployments instantly

2 Delete Deployment

A complete teardown workflow:

  • Deletes deployment entry from the database
  • Terminates the EC2 instance
  • Removes the associated Security Group
  • Removes Nginx config + symlink
  • Cleans all server-side resources

Zero leftovers. Zero AWS costs.


3 Live SSH Terminal (Browser-based)

DeployEase gives you a full interactive SSH terminal directly inside the browser:

  • Run Linux commands: ls, cd, cat
  • View/edit code using nano
  • Explore logs or inspect running services
  • Perform advanced debugging
  • No PuTTY, no local SSH setup, no keys to manage

It feels exactly like AWS EC2's web terminal — but seamless inside your app UI.


📁 Your GitHub Repositories — One-Click Deploy

The Your Repos page lists all your GitHub repositories with a single action:

🟢 Deploy on AWS

Clicking this opens the configuration page where you define the deployment parameters.


⚙️ Intelligent Deployment Configuration

DeployEase supports multiple application types:

  • Node.js
  • Python (Flask/FastAPI/Django minimal)
  • React
  • Static sites

On the configuration page, you provide:

AWS Settings

  • Access key
  • Secret key
  • Region

App Settings

  • Running port
  • Entry file (server.js, index.js, app.py, etc.)
  • Subdirectory (if your project lives in /client or /backend)
  • Environment variables (auto-written to .env)

Once submitted, DeployEase:

  • Provisions a new EC2 instance (or uses an existing one)
  • Sets up Security Groups & inbound rules
  • Installs required packages (node, python, pm2, pip, etc.)
  • Clones the repo
  • Installs dependencies
  • Creates environment configuration
  • Generates and installs Nginx configuration
  • Starts the app
  • Streams all logs to your browser in real-time

Everything is automated, observable, and structured.


🌐 Fully Automated Nginx Setup

DeployEase manages Nginx for every deployment.


For Node/Python Apps

  • Creates a unique config file in /etc/nginx/apps/
  • Symlinks it to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
  • Includes auto-generated reverse proxy rules (to your app port)
  • Reloads Nginx safely

For example:

location /<slug>/ {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:<port>;
}
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For Static/React Apps

  • Builds the project (React)
  • Copies final build to /var/www/<slug>
  • Creates an Nginx config pointing to that directory
  • Serves at:
http://<instance-ip>/<slug>
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Every app gets its own slug-based URL routing.


🧩 Deploy Multiple Apps on a Single EC2 Instance

You can choose:

✔ Create a new EC2 instance

or

✔ Use an existing instance

If you deploy to an existing instance:

  • Nginx gets an additional location block
  • Multiple apps are served on the same machine
  • Ideal for deploying frontend + backend together
  • Perfect for cost-saving architectures

🔄 Update Environment Variables Anytime

Need to modify .env?

DeployEase allows you to update environment variables at any time.
The system intelligently rewrites your entire .env file safely and consistently.


🌍 Get Instant Deployment Output

At the end of every successful deployment, you get:

  • Public IP
  • Auto-generated URL:
  http://<ip>/<slug>
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Your application becomes available to the world immediately.


🧱 Volume Resizing for Existing Instances

Without manually touching the AWS console, you can:

  • Select an EC2 instance
  • Enter a new disk volume size
  • Click apply

DeployEase then:

  • Extends EBS volume
  • Grows OS partition
  • Expands filesystem (ext4)

This is usually a multi-step Linux procedure but DeployEase automates it gracefully.


📈 Autoscaling with ASG + ALB

DeployEase lets you convert any running application into a scalable setup:

  • Choose your instance
  • Provide min/max capacity
  • DeployEase creates:

    • Auto Scaling Group
    • Launch Template
    • Application Load Balancer
    • Target Groups
    • Health Checks

This enables:

  • High availability
  • Zero downtime scaling
  • Load distribution
  • Production-grade architecture

🛠 Tech Stack Behind DeployEase

  • Next.js (App Router)
  • Prisma + PostgreSQL
  • AWS SDK v3
  • Socket.io (for live logs & SSH)
  • Nginx + PM2
  • Secure encryption for credentials
  • Tailwind CSS (UI styling)
  • Custom server-side automation scripts

Designed with clean architecture and scalability in mind.


🧭 Future Considerations & Upcoming Enhancements

DeployEase is still evolving. Some major improvements planned for upcoming versions include:


1 Custom Domain Support

Attach your own domain (e.g., app.yourdomain.com) by automatically creating:

  • Route53 hosted zones
  • DNS A records
  • SSL certificates (via AWS ACM)
  • HTTPS Nginx configurations

2 Automatic SSL (HTTPS) for Every Deployment

Even without a custom domain — DeployEase can issue temporary SSL certificates, enabling:

  • Secure access
  • Encrypted API communication
  • Public production-grade deployments

3 Containerization Options

Introduce Docker-based deployments:

  • Build Docker image
  • Push to ECR
  • Deploy using ECS or EC2 Docker runtime

This will simplify environment conflicts and dependency management.


4 CI/CD Pipeline Integration

Push-to-deploy support:

  • Merge PR → auto deploy
  • GitHub Webhooks → auto update
  • Rollback on failure

5 Team Workspaces

Allow teams to collaborate within DeployEase:

  • Shared deployments
  • Role-based access
  • Multiple AWS accounts

6 Deployment History & Versioning

Record all deployments and allow:

  • Rollbacks
  • Change tracking
  • Audit logs

7 Kubernetes Deployment Support (Long-term Goal)

Provide simplified K8s deployments for advanced users.
Potentially using:

  • EKS
  • Karpenter
  • LoadBalancer services

🎯 Conclusion

DeployEase is built to make AWS EC2 deployment:

  • Faster
  • Simpler
  • More reliable
  • Transparent
  • Developer-friendly
  • Cost-efficient

Instead of spending hours configuring servers, PM2, Nginx, security groups, ports, and processes you can deploy multiple production-ready apps in minutes with full observability, built-in SSH access, autoscaling, volume resizing, and complete lifecycle automation.

This is just the beginning — and DeployEase will continue evolving into a complete DevOps automation toolkit.

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